Deception
by Small-Wonders
Summary: <html><head></head>Spy!AU. Oliver Queen is a rogue assassin who used to work for a secret black ops unit of the government, Felicity Smoak is a computer hacker who has been recruited to help find him, and nothing is what it appears to be.</html>
1. Beginning

**A/N:** A few things you should know:

1. This is, for all intents and purposes, a Nikita!AU, but really, the only thing I've lifted from that show is Division, so long as you get the idea that Division is a secret black ops organization that has gone rogue, you shouldn't need to have watched Nikita to understand this fic. That said, I highly recommend it. It's an amazing show, and it's on Netflix Instant.  
>2. I'm totally playing it fast and loose with the Arrow timeline for this fic.<br>3. The rating might go up depending on how this story develops in future chapters.

* * *

><p>In the summer of 1992, Rebecca Merlyn is shot and left for dead in an alleyway in the section of Starling City known as "the Glades." One month after her death, Malcolm Merlyn disappears completely, leaving his seven year old son, Tommy, in the care of nannies, housekeepers, and the teachers of the expensive private school he attends.<p>

Essentially, Tommy Merlyn's father abandons him when he's only seven years old. The Queen family takes him in as best friend and older brother. Robert Queen teaches him how to fish; Moira Queen teaches him how to dress. Oliver teaches him how to move on while Thea teaches him how to laugh again. It's almost eight years before Malcolm comes back to Starling City, and by that time Tommy wants nothing to do with him.

And then Oliver Queen drowns, and Tommy's world breaks apart all over again.

He finds his peace in Laurel Lance, in comforting her. In many ways, she becomes the only good thing in his life. His father cuts him off from his trust fund, he feels helpless to stop Thea's downward spiral, and the absence of Oliver in his life only seems to get sharper by the day.

The idea for the club strikes him three years after Oliver's death. It's possible he's just a little bit wasted at the time. His first idea is to name it after his friend, but he doesn't think that _Queens_ is really the best name to attract the clientele he's hoping for.

Thea's there at the opening, grinning from ear to ear even as he takes a flask of champagne from her hand and clicks his tongue at her. After passing the flute off to a waiter, he bends to kiss her on the cheek.

Laurel shows up a second later, threading her arms around his middle and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. "You did it," she whispers in his ear. "I'm so proud of you."

"I wish Oliver could see it," he says.

Laurel's hold gets just a little tighter. She's not great at dealing with the idea that the boyfriend that cheated on her with her sister and then died was also Tommy's best friend. She doesn't know how to miss Oliver, not yet, but she has learned how to allow Tommy to miss him even though she can't. Somehow, Tommy thinks it actually helps her to know he still longs for his best friend.

"I know," she tells him. "I wish he could see it too."

* * *

><p>It's Laurel he's trying to find when the Glades' fall, desperately racing through a city that's collapsing in on itself in order to get to CNRI.<p>

The building is falling to pieces when he gets there, but he doesn't care because Laurel's inside and he has to get her out of there. If she gets out, if she's safe, it doesn't matter what happens to him.

"I love you," he says, "Go."

After the building collapses on him, Tommy doesn't wake up in a hospital. Instead he wakes in a grey room, blinking against the brightness of the fluorescent lights and letting his fingers trace across a jagged white scar dashed across his ribcage.

"Good," a woman's voice says, "You're awake."

Tommy sits up in bed and turns in the direction of the voice just as the woman in question steps into the light. She's wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a grey tank top. Her dark hair is piled in a bun on the top of her head, a few stray strands falling around her face.

"Who are you?" he asks.

"My name is Shado Fei." She has a calming, steady voice. "Welcome to Division."

"What happened? What did you do to me?"

"You died. We brought you back."

He died? That's impossible. The last thing he remembers is running after Laurel, getting her out of the building and -

- the weight of concrete on top of him, sharp pain piercing his ribcage, wetness spreading over his shirt, breathing getting harder and harder.

He _died._

"What are you going to do to me?" he asks, scrambling back on the bed, looking for anything that could be used as a weapon. Anything that could help him get out of here.

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you." She says it like she could, and he believes her. This woman doesn't scream _dangerous,_ but the way she stands screams _deadly._

"Where am I?" His throat feels raw, like he's been swallowing gravel. "Why am I here?"

"Because," she answers. "We need you to help us find someone."

"Who?" Tommy asks,

"Oliver Queen."

And Tommy laughs. "Good luck with that. Oliver Queen drowned in the North China Sea six years ago."

"Actually," an all-too-familiar-voice says, "That's not exactly true."

Another figure steps out of the shadows, and Tommy's blood runs cold.

"Hello, Tommy," Malcolm Merlyn says, "I think it's time for you to join the real family business."

* * *

><p>Felicity Smoak stumbles onto Division's radar when she hacks the CIA searching for information about Jacob Smoak. She doesn't know that Jacob Smoak became the target of Division after he uncovered information about one of their operations - code named "Verdant" - when she was very little. She doesn't know that four months later, one of Division's assets neutralized the threat.<p>

All she knows is that he's her father, he's been gone since she was seven, and she wants to know why.

At first, Division sets its sights on taking Felicity out, but shortly after she peeks into Pandora's box, she goes completely off grid. There's no sign of her for over eight months, and when she does pop back up on their radar, it's when the CIA hauls her in for questioning.

She ends up in prison, but Division has always been good at getting people out of there. A few weeks later, and there's a tombstone with the name "Felicity Megan Smoak" etched on it and a nameless, unconscious blonde is dropped off on a twin bed in a Division holding cell.

She comes to slowly, vision blurry and head aching as the room spins around her. When her eyes focus, she sees a dark-haired man in a nice suit leaning against the far wall, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Felicity Megan Smoak? My name is Tommy. Welcome to Division."

Slowly, Felicity sits up, taking in the room around her, the concrete walls, the secured door, the complete absence of furniture apart from the bed she's on. Nervously, her eyes flick from the gun strapped to Tommy's hip up to his face.

"Your old life is over," he says, stepping toward her. "I'm here to offer you a new one."

* * *

><p>"This," Tommy says, gesturing to a open room with screens mounted to every wall and workstations placed in a pattern across the floor, "is Operations. Every Op Division runs is powered through this room, through the analysts and technical support. You'll be working here soon. We want to get you up to speed as soon as possible."<p>

"You're going to let me near computers?" she says, incredulous. They might as well give her the keys to this place, as well as hand over every dirty secret they've ever wanted to keep hidden. Computers are her best friends and in her hands, the world's worst enemies.

"Certain systems, yes." Tommy seems to catch on to what she's saying. "Felicity, the way Division's relationship started with you might be a little bit rocky, but I need you to believe me that we do good. We make the tough calls that no one else can, stop the bad guys when the government's hands are tied. We do what the system can't do. We save people like you, give you the tools to use your talents to help people. Wouldn't you like to help people?"

She stays silent.

Tommy sighs. "Let's try this another way: You hacked the CIA because you want to know about your father, right?"

"Right."

"Division can give you the answers you're looking for. Division can help you find him or help you find justice for him. That's what you want more than anything, right?"

"I want to make the people who hurt him pay," she says. "I don't care what it takes."

He grins at her. "Then let us help you. Do we have a deal?"

Holding out his hand, Tommy stands before her, patiently waiting.

"One question," she says.

He shrugs. "Go ahead."

"Who is that?" Felicity asks, gesturing to the mugshot splashed across all of the screens.

"That," Tommy replies, "Is Oliver Queen. He was one of us. He went rogue just over a year ago, but he popped back up on our radar yesterday."

Frowning, Felicity studies the photo. "Is he dangerous?"

"Very," Tommy answers. "One of the first things we'd like you do to is to help us find him. That's assuming we have a deal?"

His hand is still held out to her, offering all the things she's wanted for so long. Justice. Vengeance. Answers.

Felicity takes it. "We have a deal."

* * *

><p>Division grabs Oliver when he inadvertently stumbles upon one of their projects on the island of <em>Lian Yu.<em>

Since one of Division's mottos is "waste not, want not," the unit on sight decides that Oliver Queen is worth more alive than dead, and since he's already dead to the world, they might as well use him.

Oliver Queen wakes up in Division and the first person he sees is Malcolm Merlyn glowering down at him.

"So," he says, smugly, "How are you enjoying the afterlife?"

Oliver lunges at him, locking his hands around Merlyn's throat and squeezing. It takes three men to drag him off of Merlyn and a fast acting sedative to knock him out.

When he wakes up, he's hanging suspended from the ceiling, his arms chained above his head and his toes just barely brushing the floor.

The door opens. Merlyn enters with a satisfied smile on his face.

"Let's try this again," he says. "You're dead, this is hell, and the only way you're going to live through what happens next is to do exactly what I say or everyone you love will pay the price for your defiance. Do you understand, Oliver?"

Oliver grits his teeth, but nods his head.

"Good," Merlyn says. "Let's get you with the program then."

He presses a button on a small remote in his hand, and a series of videos begin to play, projected on the wall in front of Oliver.

Thea. Moira. Laurel. Tommy. Over and over again. The only four people who matter anymore.

Malcolm takes delight in pointing out the assets following them during their daily lives, describing the way each one of them will be harmed or killed if Oliver doesn't agree to work for him.

"I know who you love, Oliver, and I know how to hurt them so much they will wish for death. In fact, they'll beg for it."

The words for how badly he wants to kill Malcolm are right there, but Oliver can't say them. He can't say anything. Merlyn is right. One wrong move from him, and everyone and everything he loves - everything he's been fighting to get back to - will be gone in a blink.

"Believe me, Oliver," Malcolm says, "It is better for everyone if you stay dead. Do we have an understanding?"

Oliver hangs his head in defeat.

* * *

><p>Oliver works for Division as a loyal asset for six years. That's not to say he completely gives up on the hope of one day going back to his old life. But he's learning how to be smart. Every assignment given to him is completed with as much excellence as he can muster. Every opportunity to display his loyalty to Division is not wasted.<p>

Turns out, Oliver Queen of before was a four-time college drop-out, but Oliver Queen the survivor woke up in Division and discovered something he was good at. The pressure of surviving the crucible that is Division turns him into an excellent marksman, Malcolm's favorite go-to sniper, someone skilled the mechanics of parkour, and a force to be reckoned with in hand-to-hand combat.

Division teaches Oliver things he never would have learned otherwise.

Once he's earned Malcolm's trust, he starts to slip off to Starling City during his downtime. He keeps his eyes on Thea and Moira, Laurel and Tommy. He watches Verdant open from across the street and smiles when he sees that the line to get inside stretches down the block.

And he waits. Because one day, he's getting out. He's getting out and he's getting back to his life, the one where he's not responsible for pulling the trigger on a gun someone else has aimed and loaded. Someday, he's going home.

And then he finds out Malcolm was responsible for the Queen's Gambit going down. Robert Queen didn't like what Merlyn was doing with Division, so Merlyn had him taken out. One of his men rigged the Gambit. Oliver was just supposed to be an unfortunate casualty - until he washed up alive on the shores of _Lian Yu_.

Slowly, Oliver begins to pull together what he needs to make a break from Division: cash, an untraceable car, a place to go, weapons, ammo, fake identification, and a battle plan.

He so desperately needs a battle plan. Parasites as well fed and ingrained into the government as Division aren't rooted out easily, and he'd be foolish to think he could just go after them as a one-man army.

He needs help. Thankfully, he knows where to find it.

* * *

><p>She's in the corner booth, her back to the wall so she can see the entire restaurant. Open in front of her is a grey laptop, and beside that is a cup of coffee. There's a pen between her bright pink lips.<p>

"Felicity Smoak," he says. "Hi. I'm Oliver Queen."

She looks up at him, slowly dragging the pen from her mouth in a way that he should not find as enticing as he does. "What do you want, Oliver Queen?"

Grinning, he slides into the chair across from her. Normally, he'd like to be in her position, with all of the entrances and exits in his eye-line, but he'll make an exception this once. "What do you know about a black ops group of the government called Division?"

"I know they're an urban myth." Unamused, she takes a sip of her coffee. "That what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"They're not a myth. They exist."

"How do you know?"

"Because I was one of them."

"Bull."

"Truth."

Defiantly, she tips her head back. "Prove it."

He motions to her laptop casually. "Google me."

Her fingers fly across the keyboard. For a moment, she studies the results on her screen. Then she looks up at Oliver. "You're supposed to be dead."

"I'm not."

"Clearly."

"Division faked my death."

"You expect me to believe that Division sank a yacht to kidnap a spoiled playboy nobody but TMZ cares about in order to turn him into an assassin?"

Oliver doesn't say anything.

"Even if I believed all this, Oliver - which I don't - what is it you want from me?"

"Help. You were on Division's radar. They wanted to recruit you."

"And you're here to try to do that?"

"No," Oliver says, lips curving in almost a half smile, "I came to see if you wanted to help me stop them."

Closing her laptop, Felicity leans forward . Lowering her voice. "And why - if I even believed you - would I want to do that?"

Oliver pulls a file folder from his jacket, tosses it onto the table in front of her, and says, "Because Division is the reason your father is gone."

Being in Division has taught Oliver a lot about reading people. The moment he mentions her father is the moment he hooks her. Jacob Smoak is his ace in the hole.

Cautiously, Felicity reaches for the file. She opens it. Five seconds later, Felicity's face goes ashen, and Oliver understands. She's been searching for answers for the past fifteen years. Coming this close has to feel like heaven and hell at the same time.

Her eyes stay on the file as she asks, "Division killed my father?" It's more of a statement than a question at this point. The file Oliver stole was incredibly detailed.

Reaching over the table, Oliver offers her his hand. "Does this mean you're in?"

She doesn't hesitate. "I'm in."


	2. Planning

**A/N: **Since there is apparently some confusion about the pairings for this fic, let me reassure you all that at the moment, this fic's intended main pairing is Oliver/Felicity, followed by some Felicity/Tommy friendship and eventually some Felicity/Barry friendship.

* * *

><p>Taking Division apart from the inside is Felicity's idea. She's sitting on the floor in the center of the foundry in front of a huge whiteboard covered with photos and lines and notations. The area around her is covered with files and papers spread out haphazardly. She knows it looks like chaos to Oliver, but it makes perfect sense to her.<p>

For the past week she's been down here, sleeping in the twin bed in the area Oliver's cornered off for her with four shower curtains hanging from metal rods. It's not the best kind of privacy, but it's an obvious effort on his part, so she takes it. Both of them need to be extra carful to stay off of Division's radar until they're ready to strike. Any preemptive action from either of them could end this entire operation before it even gets started.

At the other end of the foundry, Oliver is exercising. Shirtless. This happens a lot, and having her back to Oliver's shirtless, sweaty, well-defined form is the only reason Felicity isn't currently distracted by it. She can hear the clang of the Salmon Ladder as he climbs higher and higher, and she wills herself not to turn around. It's impressive, like everything else about Oliver Queen.

When she hears the soft sound of him dropping to the floor, she says, "I have an idea."

Oliver doesn't speak until he's right in front of her, towel draped around his shoulders. His abs glisten with sweat, and Felicity forces her eyes not to linger on them. "What is it?" he asks.

"You're not going to like it."

"What _is_ it?" Oliver repeats.

"You said Division wanted to recruit me, right?"

Oliver tilts his head to the side. She can see the wheels spinning. "Right..."

"So." Felicity takes a deep breath. Once the words are out of her mouth there is no taking them back. "What if we let them?"

"No," Oliver says without a moment of hesitation. "Out of the question."

Felicity stands to her feet. She's much shorter than Oliver, but that doesn't mean she wants to have this discussion while she's craning her neck to look up at him. "Why? Because you don't think I can do it?"

"No, Felicity. Because..."

"You tell me we need information that's on these black boxes - information Malcolm has hidden and protected away from prying eyes - but you don't know where the boxes are or how to find them or even really _what_ they are. Figuring that out requires information that is inside Division, and if you're as good as you say, there's no way I'm even going to get anywhere close to it from the outside hacking in. On the inside, I have a chance at getting what we need."

"On the inside, you have a chance of getting yourself _killed_," Oliver amends. "I won't let that happen."

"It's my life; that makes it my call, not yours."

"It's my mission."

She steps closer to him, inside his personal space, looking up at him, daring him to back down. She speaks slowly and forcefully. "It's mine too. If you can't recognize that I don't know how I ever thought we were partners."

She starts to brush past him, but he grabs her arm.

It's the first time he's touched her since their handshake in the coffee shop, and it sets off a fire in her bones. Glancing down at his hand on her arm, then back up at him, Felicity says, "Let me go."

"You _are_ my partner," Oliver's voice is low and husky. "And it's because you're my partner that I can't let you do this. Partners are there to drag you back from the edge, Felicity. I'm telling you, you have no idea - no _concept_ - of just how dangerous what you're suggesting is. I did not pull you into this fight to watch you throw away your life on a shot in the dark."

She yanks her arm out of his grip. "And I didn't join this fight to sit on the sidelines and twiddle my thumbs. You need to know how to destroy Division? I'm telling you. This is what it's going to take."

And with that, she grabs her laptop and marches off to the tiny corner of the lair she can call hers so she can draw up a stealth infiltration strategy Oliver can't refuse.

* * *

><p>One of the first things Tommy does - once his training as a Division agent is complete and he has access to the internet again - is look for Laurel's obituary. He doesn't find it. Instead he finds evidence that while 3,503 people died during the earthquake's destruction of the Glades, Laurel wasn't among them.<p>

The relief that she's alive, that she _survived_, hits him square in the chest, and he mouths a prayer of thanks to whatever deity is out there. This revelation is soon followed by the horrific knowledge that she thinks he's dead. She thinks he's dead. She thinks Oliver's dead. She probably lost friends during that quake. Coworkers.

And his father was the one responsible. His _father_ was the reason Division agents were in place to pull Tommy out. His father is the reason 3,503 people are dead from two separate weapons that decimated a huge part of Starling City all so that he could prove to the Oversight Committee that Division had its place among the intelligence agencies.

"You need to stop thinking about her." Shado sinks into the seat next to him. Her unrivaled skills in stealth ensure that she's made it all the way across the otherwise empty computer lab without making a sound. "No good will come of it."

Tommy closes his eyes as he clears his browser history with a series of clicks. "I can't. She thinks that I'm-"

He cuts himself off. Up until this point in their relationship, Shado has been nothing but trustworthy. She's in charge of agent training. She's thrown him onto his ass more times than he could count, made him slap a bowl of water for hours, and talked him through numerous fights with his personal demons. She's perceptive and precise.

(And pretty, but he knows he's not supposed to notice that.)

"I know what she thinks, and I know how that aches in your soul. Do you think I am happy knowing that my own father believes I am dead? You _must _understand yourself, Thomas. You _must_ learn patience, learn acceptance of the world around you. The status quo can be changed, but if you are to be the one to change it you _must_ wait until the right time."

Tommy's never been fond of being called Thomas, but he finds that he doesn't mind when Shado's voice is the one saying his full name.

"You and I both know that the _only _reason my father even considered bringing me in was to bait Oliver."

"You were going to die."

"And he could have dropped me off at a hospital instead of deciding that he hadn't fucked up my life enough and needed to fake my death too."

Shado stays quiet. By this point, Tommy's learned that it's not because she doesn't have anything to say, but more because she has too much to say and she wants to make the right decision.

Still, there's no point in waiting forever. "There's something I've been wondering. You and Oliver, the two of you were close; do you know why he left?"

Leaning forward, Shado rests her elbows on her knees. "I don't know."

Confused, Tommy frowns, but he knows Shado, so he waits for more, sure she won't just leave him with that.

"Malcolm knows why," she says finally. "Or at least, he has his suspicions, but he won't share them with me."

"Oliver didn't tell you why he left?"

She shakes her head. "There was a time, Thomas, when I knew that man well. That time had ended quite a while before he decided to leave."

"It must have been something awful," Tommy says, "if he finally left here after all this time."

"He never wanted to be here," Shado tells him. "He wanted to go home-to you and Thea and Moira and Laurel. He wanted to go back home."

"And my father wouldn't let him."

"Your father believes that once he's saved someone, this place is their home and these people are their family, but Oliver never accepted that. His home was always in Starling, and his family was always the people there. You."

Somehow, that knowledge is soothing. Oliver never wanted to stay here. Oliver was here then for the same reason Tommy is here now. He _aches_ to return to Laurel, to Thea, much in the same way Oliver must have. And yet he understands this need to keep them safe, to keep them away from the destruction Division will surely bring to their lives.

"I suppose," Shado says quietly, startling him out of his reverie, "You're going to need to decide if you will do the same. Do you want to let this place be your home? Or do you want to spend your time here pining over a girl who has grieved you and moved on?"

Tommy doesn't know the answer to that.

* * *

><p>It takes Oliver a week to come around to Felicity's idea. It's a week Felicity spends laying out every facet of her plan. She's a conniving planner, completely able to work out possible contingencies and think quickly on her feet. She's not as effective of a liar as she could be, but deception is something Oliver can teach her.<p>

It's also a week during which everything goes completely and utterly wrong. It's a gunshot wound that finally does it. Oliver gets a graze on his shoulder, and Felicity ends up patching him up. As he's sitting there, thinking off all of the things that could have gotten them ahead of Division, he has to acknowledge that having someone on the inside would have helped.

"Alright," Oliver says, "I don't like it, but you're right. It's a good idea, and it could work."

Felicity almost drops the gauze she's wrapping around his arm. "Really?"

He grabs her free hand gently, rubbing the pad of his thumb against the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. "If we do this, Felicity, we're not doing it halfway. You're not going to just up and waltz into the CIA tomorrow so Division can grab you. We're going to do this _right_. We've only got one shot at this. We need to plan."

"And we'll get one," she tells him, staring him directly in the eyes. "We can do this, Oliver."

"I don't like the idea of putting you in unnecessary danger." He's still holding onto her hand, and he really should let go, but he doesn't want to. He should not fall for this woman, but he's always been a selfish bastard like that. Division didn't drill that out of him. Regardless, he reminds himself, he doesn't have to be attracted to her to prioritize her safety.

"Neither do I," Felicity says, "But it's my life to risk. Besides, this is a good idea. It's going to work."

Oliver really hopes so.

* * *

><p>"Tell me why do I need to do this again?" Felicity asks, pushing herself up off of the training mat and back onto her feet. Sweat glistens on her skin and plasters strands of hair that has escaped from her ponytail onto the back of her neck. "All Division plans for me to do is sit behind a keyboard and type. This isn't going to help me battle carpal tunnel."<p>

Tommy smiles at her. "Analysts need to be prepared to go into the field; it's part of your basic training."

"It's a waste of time." Taking advantage of the unofficial break, Felicity bends down to grab her water bottle.

"You won't say that when Malcolm sends you out with a TAC team to collect information and Queen gets the drop on you."

She gives him a look. "Is that likely to happen?"

"You never know." He's grinning at her, and that stomps down the anxiety that rises inside her at the thought of going into the field with _Division_ as her back up. Up against Oliver. How does she keep her cover if they try to kill him? How does she protect him without stepping in front of her own bullet?

"Hey," Tommy says, resting a hand on her shoulder. "That's some time away, alright? And I know all the rumors about Queen make him sound utterly terrifying, but every time we've run into them, he's made every effort to avoid killing any of our assets."

"I don't understand," Felicity says, "I thought you told me he wanted to burn this place to the ground.

"That's the story my-Malcolm is telling." Felicity hears the verbal slip. She knows Malcolm is his father, because of Oliver, but from what she's seen, Tommy doesn't want the rest of the agents to know the connection. "I've looked at the mission reports. I don't think Oliver is out to take this organization out from the ground up. I don't think he's ever tried to go after the agents. I think he's out to stop Malcolm, and he wants to keep the casualty count as low as possible."

Considering the two men haven't seen each other in over six years, Tommy's accurate insight into Oliver's motivation is surprising.

And then, like he's said too much, Tommy slips back into instructor mode. "Let's get back to this."

Wincing, Felicity sets her water bottle down and takes her place across from him. He's going over basics that she already knows, but she needs to pretend that she doesn't. She needs them to think she's not as good as she is. She needs to be underestimated. It's crucial to her own survival. If that means letting Tommy plaster her to the floor using moves Oliver's already taught her how to block, then that's what she has to do.

"You're getting better at this," Tommy tells her needlessly. But he doesn't know that it's needless, so she smiles at him and thanks him for saying it. She also tries not to groan out loud when she doesn't stop him from effortlessly throwing her to the ground. Again.

The temptation to show him exactly what she's made of rises in her chest, but she stamps it down and accepts the hand up he offers her.

"Don't you worry, Felicity Smoak," Tommy says. "We'll get you there. It's a promise."

They go back and forth for a few more rounds, and Felicity's almost about to tell Tommy she's had enough and can they please go back to target practice because she's better at it, when something strange happens.

The main training room in Division is positioned right along the hallway that leads to Operations. Glass windows line the walkway so that Malcolm, Tommy and Isabel can check in on the trainees-not that Felicity thinks Isabel particularly cares beyond her infuriating urge to snoop.

Tommy is talking her through fixing her stance (she _knows_ that her legs aren't far enough apart; she's doing it incorrectly by intention) when Felicity glances behind him and sees a woman walking down the hallway toward operations.

"Who's that?" The words are out of her mouth before she has time to think of the consequences.

She watches Tommy's face carefully as he turns around, and what she sees is the face of a man whose world has just stopped and started up again.

"Shado," he says in a quiet whisper.

He's out of the room before Felicity can ask him another question.

* * *

><p>"You said they'd train me," Felicity tells Oliver as they face off on the training mats. She tries not to let her eyes wander down to his bare abs. "Why are we doing this?"<p>

"Contingencies," is his answer. "Also, if you want to work your way into Malcolm's favor, being a computer expert who can take care of herself in the field is a great way to do it."

"But I thought you were just sending me in to collect information?"

"Contingencies," Oliver repeats. He steps forward, and she counters the motion just like he taught her. "You never know when a plan is going to go wrong."

Felicity gulps. "How wrong are we talking about here? Like 'Merlyn finds out that I'm working with you and kills me' wrong or 'I accidently get a paper cut sifting through files on his desk' wrong? Oh god, would he really kill me? That seems like overkill-pun so not intended-especially since he could theoretically use me to get to you, and that's not even the point, the point was-"

"Felicity."

"Right." She snaps her mouth shut and shifts her focus back onto her stance, trying to remember exactly how Oliver told her to stand. At the time he was giving her instructions, he was behind her and just as hypnotically shirtless as he is right now. "Sorry. I get chatty when I'm nervous."

"Look," Oliver says "I want to be able to promise you that I'm not going to let anything happen to you, but that would be a lie. The truth is that I won't be in there with you. You're going in completely dark, and the only person you're going to be able to trust in there is _yourself_."

"I trust you," she says.

Oliver winces. "You shouldn't."

They go again, back and forth. Felicity gets used to the feeling of crashing onto the mats every time she slips up, but she's actually glad that he's pushing her. He's right; she'll need this skill set inside Division.

Finally, he strikes out at her; she responds - correctly this time - and they both fall. The breath leaves Felicity's lungs with a _whoosh_, and when it comes back, Oliver is on top of her. His hips are bracketed by her legs, and the intimacy of the position steals away whatever breath had previously returned to her.

Sliding her arms up between their bodies, Felicity cups his face in her hands. "I trust you, Oliver. _I trust you_."

He bends down, his forehead pressing against hers. She can feel his breath hot against her face. His expression is unreadable. "I can't protect you in there. You understand that, right?"

Before while they were fighting it was easy to ignore his hands on her skin because they were generally accompanied by a quick fall onto the mats a second later. But here, with one arm holding his body up and the other wrapped around her waist, it's impossible to overlook how quickly her body reacts to this man.

"You're protecting me right now, by helping me protect myself."

"Felicity," he draws out the syllables of her name like they're a melody. For a moment, she thinks he's going to kiss her, and she wants it more than she wants her next breath.

Oliver Queen is dangerous and overpowering and even knowing how much she should not be feeling anything for him, she finds herself completely unable to resist him.

And then he's pushing himself off of her and muttering something about how this is enough sparring for now.

As he walks away, she watches the way he rubs his thumb against the pads of his fingers. She lets herself be comforted by the knowledge that he was far from unaffected by the moment they just shared as he'd like her to think.


	3. Learning

Two months after Tommy has been made a full fledged Division agent, Shado catches him on his way to a meeting with his father.

"We need to talk," she says, grabbing his arm and tugging him back in the direction from which he'd come. "Before you go see your-Malcolm-before you go see Malcolm." Even though she doesn't like it - "You need to own up to your own past, Thomas. No matter how it hurts you." - she's gotten better at keeping his parentage a secret from everybody else at Division, but sometimes she slips up.

"What's going on?" he asks, following her as she swipes her key card across the door lock for one of this level's armories.

Shado waits until they're both inside the room and the door is closed behind them. "I need you to listen to me _very_ carefully. Do you trust me?"

He wants to have the right to feel hurt that she even has to ask, but he's been in this world long enough to know better. "You know that I do."

"Your father is planning on putting you in charge of the recruits' training for the time being."

That's _her_ job. If he's being put in charge, then that means... "Why? Where are you going to be?"

"Malcolm wants to make some noise in Starling City, see if he can lure Oliver out into the open."

Tommy's heart stops. "He's going after Thea? Moira?" Surely his father wouldn't. He _couldn't_. They have nothing to do with this.

"I'm not sure yet," Shado says, "Possibly both of them. It's not like he hasn't threatened their lives before. How do you think he forced Oliver to stay seven years ago?"

"He used them against him." Admittedly, Tommy thinks that makes a lot of sense. The Oliver he knew back then would have moved heaven and earth to get home...unless it was going to put other people in the crossfire.

"Them...and you and Laurel and anyone and everyone else Oliver has ever loved. It's what Merlyn _does_."

Tommy remembers his father snidely mentioning how unfortunate it would be if Laurel met with an untimely accident. He remembers feeling helpless and out of control until he'd convinced himself that it was just a threat. Malcolm wouldn't do anything to Laurel so long as Tommy toed the line. "And you're just going to help him threaten them again?"

Hurt flashes across Shado's face. "I'm doing this, Thomas, because another agent isn't going to care about the collateral damage. Another agent won't try to keep Moira and Thea _safe_ while they're trying to bring Oliver in, and they won't care about keeping Oliver safe when Merlyn is completely fine with them taking him out. I'm going because I'm one of the only people who is actually going to try to keep everyone alive."

Everything inside Tommy just deflates. All the anger at his father, all his anger at Oliver, all his confusion surrounding what their relationship was and what it wasn't is completely inaccessible to him. All that matters is that his best friend was still his best friend when he joined Division and he stayed away to protect them, to protect _him_.

The problem is that Oliver's not just going to sit idly by while his family is in danger. He's going to show up in Starling. He's going to try to protect them.

And Tommy's father is going to use that against him.

"Be careful," Tommy says. He knows Oliver wouldn't kill her, just like he knows she wouldn't kill him. There are so many other factors in play, however, that he feels the need to say it. He doesn't know how to tell her he wouldn't know what to do if anything happened to her. He thinks he would go crazy here without her, with no one around who truly had his back.

"I will," she says. "Watch your back in here without me. Your father has eyes and ears everywhere. Don't trust anyone."

He wants to hug her, but he's not sure if she would be receptive to it, so he refrains. Still, there's something about the way she looks at him, like she's memorizing everything about him, just in case this is the mission that separates them forever.

Which it won't be. Tommy hopes.

One at a time, they slip back into the hallway; Tommy goes first and heads straight to Operations.

As soon as he steps inside, he feels sick. Thea and Moira's faces are displayed on the monitors, along with a host of information about them. If Division wants them dead, they'll be gone within 24 hours.

He hears the door behind him open. Shado moves to stand beside him. "Stay calm," she says. "I've got this."

"Tommy," Malcolm yells from across the room. "We have a new recruit. She's just waking up. As the new head of recruit training, your face need to be the first face she sees. Let's go."

It's exactly how Malcolm would announce a position change. No one in the room even seems nonplussed by it.

"Go," Shado says softly. "We'll talk more when I get back."

_If you get back_, he thinks, but he can't bear to say it out loud. She takes his hand and gives it a firm squeeze, then she's walking away and he's watching her go.

"Here," Malcolm says, passing him a tablet. "This is the file on your girl."

Tommy only has a few seconds to skim it as he follows his father out of Operations and down the hall to the recruits' quarters.

"Felicity Smoak," he says under his breath. "Welcome to the hellhole they call Division."

* * *

><p>"To get to Malcolm's black boxes, you need to get to him," Oliver says, passing Felicity his phone. They've been going over the function and personalities of every high level Division agent. Thus far, she's learned about the head of Division, Malcolm Merlyn, and his second-in-command, a fearsome woman by the name if Isabel Rochev.<p>

"Who is he?" Felicity asks, staring at the photo on the screen with no small amount of curiosity.

"This is Barry Allen," Oliver says. "He's Malcolm's engineer. He handles the encryption of his black boxes, setup and monitoring of comm units for teams, hacking, and upkeep of ever piece of computer technology inside Division. If you use a keyboard, you report to him. Malcolm will put the two of you together to try to find me, I have no doubt."

"How do I handle that?"

"Barry? Smile, flirt. He's a softie, but you need to impress him first. Once you've done that, he'll fall at your feet."

"No," Felicity hesitates, "I meant, how do I handle the fact that my job will be to find you?"

"I don't understand."

She sighs. "If they tell me to find you, Oliver, that's exactly what I'll have to do. I've been studying how to find people for the better part of the past ten years."

"I know how to stay off of Division's radar, Felicity. I've done it before; you don't have to worry."

"You forget to eat if I don't call the Chinese place three blocks away and order kung pao chicken with egg rolls; of course I'm gonna worry."

"That's different."

She doesn't think so. "I'm gonna have to teach you how to hide. You teach me how to protect myself on the inside; I'll teach you how to protect yourself outside."

The smile he gives her is soft and genuine. His hand curves gently over her shoulder. "Thank you."

"I can try to cover your tracks," she says, intentionally breaking the moment. Oliver gives her a look. "_Carefully_, of course."

"Don't overdo it. Allen is clever. If you don't cover your tracks just right, he _will_ catch you."

"Noted." Felicity hands him back his phone. "I'll be careful."

Now," he says, in what is a clear change of subject, "How is that shell program coming?"

"Done." Felicity raises a fist in the air victoriously. "As of an hour ago."

"Good." Turning away, Oliver starts rifling through one of the drawers of one of the metal cabinets, pulling out various shiny, pointed things. "Let's get this over with."

Felicity winces. She has not been looking forward to this part.

Trying not to look at the instruments Oliver is sterilizing, Felicity unbuttons her blouse slowly, letting it slip off of her shoulder and down her arm. She wraps the rest of the garment around her waist.

"I'm going to give you a local anesthetic," Oliver says, "but it's not going to do much. This is going to hurt, Felicity."

"I know. I said I was willing to do whatever it takes. I am."

Felicity leans forward onto the table, making sure she's comfortable and well supported. "Besides, we have to do this now. It needs to heal before Division takes me or they'll be suspicious."

The first cut into her skin _hurts_, but the second is more bearable. She closes her eyes and focuses on the firmness of the table beneath her upper body. He's making the incision in her upper arm, in a place that's accessible so she can cut out the encased microchip once she's inside Division. The chip contains the shell program she needs to be able to communicate with him on the inside without detection.

"I hate needles," she says, because talking is a distraction she needs right now. If he tells her to stop, she will. No sense distracting the guy with the sharp pointy objects. "I'm not even sure when that started. I know that I hated getting shots when I was a kid, even had nightmares about it. There must have been some bad experience in my youth, I just can't remember it. All I know is that I don't like needles. I'm not crazy about blood, either, but it doesn't make me woozy, just a little uncomfortable, which I think is understandable. Shouldn't blood make everyone uncomfortable?"

He hasn't told her to stop yet, so she keeps going. "This is gonna be my first scar. Probably. The ones in my mouth don't really count-impacted wisdom teeth, stitches-cause you can't really see them."

The pain goes from a dull throb to a sharp, piercing pain, and she can't help the quick intake of breath that accompanies the sensation.

"You okay?" Oliver asks.

"Yes. Keep going. I want this over with."

"Soon, I promise," he says, and she can _hear_ the smile in his voice, the amusement. "Keep talking to me, Felicity."

So she does. Her brain is a little too frazzled and pain-addled for her to really remember everything she says, but she does know that she doesn't stop talking until after Oliver finishes the last stitch and is pulling the latex gloves off of his hands.

"All done."

She breathes a huge sigh of relief. "Now I just have to figure out how to take it out."

* * *

><p>Felicity tries to ignore the blood dripping down her arm as she presses a blade against a tiny white scar that has just recently healed. She needs to be quick, but she also needs to be <em>careful<em>.

She had to lift the pocketknife off of one of the guards, and she's got to drop it back on the same one before he notices it's missing. There's just no other way. Division doesn't let them near anything else sharp enough to cut through her skin, and she needs this chip out of her arm _now_, because she needs to be able to communicate with Oliver sooner rather than later.

It's the thought of Oliver that helps her through the agonizing process of pulling the chip out of her arm. Trying not to cry, she dabs at the blood with a tissue, slaps a bandage over the cut, and tugs her sleeve back into place so she can hide the evidence.

She's just burying the bloody tissues at the bottom of her trash can when someone knocks on the door to her room.

"Smoak!" Tommy yells, "Let's go. Time's wasting."

Sliding the chip in her pocket and the stolen knife under her mattress, Felicity climbs off of the twin bed and yanks open the door. "What's up?"

"I want to introduce you to someone, c'mon." Tommy starts walking and motions for her to follow. Felicity has to jog for a few seconds to catch up with his longer stride and quicker pace.

"Who?" she asks.

"You'll see."

They round a corner, take a quick elevator ride (after Tommy swipes his key card; Felicity's not allowed off of the recruit's level and has been told numerous times that _any _unauthorized access to other floors could result in her cancelation), and descend a short set of stairs into a room completely _filled_ with computer equipment. Several workstations, a display of six monitors on the far wall, and a workbench covered with wires and tools make the place look like heaven. Off in the corner of the room is a twin bed, almost hidden by all the stuff that surrounds it.

A young man spins around in his desk chair as Tommy and Felicity reach the last step.

"Tommy," he says, jumping to his feet and running towards them, just barely dodging a stack of books as he does so. "I fixed the issues with the comms, but I had to recalibrate the entire system."

From there, he launches into a detailed explanation that Felicity can tell Tommy doesn't understand a word of. She, however, follows him easily. Computers are her bread and butter.

"Felicity Smoak," Tommy says, when the young man pauses to take a breath, "Meet Barry Allen. You'll be working primarily with him."

"Hi," Felicity says, "Nice to meet you."

He takes her hand and gives her a smile that lights up his eyes. "The infamous Felicity Smoak, it _is _a pleasure."

Oliver's right; Barry's cute. And he's already looking at her with definite interest. Impress him, that's what Oliver said to do. Impress him, and he'll fall at your feet.

Felicity scans his setup. One or two thoughtful comments later, she barely notices when Tommy leaves the room because she's so engrossed in conversation with Barry. And is he ever eager to impress her. It's a cinch to plug in the memory card, and the beauty of the program she's designed is that it's virtually undetectable and loads itself onto the system so she doesn't have to leave the incriminating hardware there. Once sufficient time has passed, Felicity just casually slips the card back into her pocket. She'll destroy it at the first available opportunity.

"We do need to get you up to speed on a few Division-specific programs," Barry is saying, "but I'd love to show you some of the actual hardware. This system is a thing of beauty."

"I'm sure that's because you designed it," Felicity says. Talking to Barry is effortless. She can look at him and see the excitement and joy in his eyes at the thought of _creating _things. He actually seems _happy_ here.

Division didn't kill his father, she reminds herself. And like Oliver told her once, everyone has their own reasons for joining up.

"So," Barry says, offering her a red vine, "What's your story?"

Taking the candy, Felicity draws on the half-true cover she'd constructed with Oliver. "Computers always made more sense to me than people. My dad was an insurance salesman." Hardly, he worked for the CIA, but sales was his cover when Felicity was little, so the lie doesn't catch on her tongue. "But he knew all about computers. We were building one together when he left."

"I'm sorry," Barry says. "My dad killed my mom when I was around the same age. So, I know what it's like...to live with a parent betraying you in a fundamental way like that."

She doesn't want to talk about her father, but she _does_ want to use this similarity to find out more about him, the things Oliver couldn't or wouldn't tell her. Felicity asks, "How did you end up here?"

"I was put in the foster system. Actually, when I was around fifteen I had a family who would have adopted me if I hadn't hacked into the police systems looking for information about my mother's murder. I cut a deal, but it was contingent on spending a few months in JV. Malcolm approached me when I got out." He smiles. "Best decision of my life. This is the first place I've ever felt like I belonged."

Felicity doesn't have a response to that. Her brain can't even begin to _contemplate_ it. To her, Division is constant danger. If they find out she's working with Oliver, she's dead. If she can't get Oliver the information he needs without Division finding out her, _he's_ dead.

Barry seems to catch on to her anxiety, but he completely misinterprets it. "Give it some time, Felicity. Pretty soon this place will seem like home to you too."

It's the least reassuring thing he could possibly have said, but he has no way of knowing that.

Felicity smiles and takes another red vine.

* * *

><p>After two days of carefully observing the computer lab, Felicity concludes that it's quietest during lunchtime. The shell program she installed can be accessed from any terminal, so she doesn't have to be anywhere near Barry or his system. She had to wait a few days after planting the program, just to be careful. Even with that caution, it's still best to not have to worry about anyone else's eyes peeking over her shoulder.<p>

But now she can talk to Oliver. Even if it's just through what basically amounts to a well-hidden, super-encrypted instant messenger.

Felicity takes a deep breath. What does she even say? She wants to write him a novel, tell him all the things that have happened. She wants to tell him how she doesn't like people's loyalty to Division, but she understands it so much better now; she wants him to promise her that they'll keep the collateral damage to a minimum. She wants to talk about how Tommy is a great training agent. He's supportive, kind, and encouraging; he makes her laugh when she never thought she'd be able to so much as smile while she was inside Division's walls. She wants him to know she understands why Tommy Merlyn was Oliver Queen's best friend.

And then there's Barry, whose eyes light up when she enters the room, who is so relieved to have someone else to talk tech with who actually understands, and who shares his contraband candy with her.

Finally, she wishes she could speak with him about Malcolm Merlyn. She has yet to actually be in the man's presence as anything other than a face in the crowd, but everything about him gives her the creeps. It's inconceivable to her how this ruthless, cunning man is the father of one of the gentlest souls she's ever met.

"Tommy doesn't have the stomach for Division," Oliver told her once. "And it'll eat him alive if I-if _we_ don't stop it."

"You didn't have the stomach either," she'd replied, "You left."

"We're not the same, Felicity. He's a good man."

She'd stepped forward then, placing a hand on his arm. She remembers how her voice had trembled with conviction. "So are you."

"No," Oliver had said with a shake of his head. "I _was_. Now I'm just a survivor."

And the way he'd completely shut any attempts at conversation down after that had been the end it.

Being here, with these people - watching how Merlyn manipulates everything around him, knowing how he broke Oliver into fragments and let him heal _wrong_ - it makes her understand him so much better. He's not what she thought in the beginning at all.

And she knows, knows way down in her bones, that she's not going to be the same either. Sure, she's playing a game. She isn't the Felicity they see, and they can't manipulate and control her the way they did him. It's not going to matter. Division alters everything it touches, and she's not going to be the exception.

Felicity puts her hands to the keyboard and types.

**I'M IN. WAITING FOR INSTRUCTIONS.**

She waits. A few seconds later the reply comes through.

**GOOD. WILL BE IN TOUCH. KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN. STAY SAFE. 346.**

During one of their late nights, they'd developed their own shorthand, just in the unlikely event someone from Division got their hands on transcripts of these conversations. Three-Four-Six means: _Got your six._

Felicity smiles and replies: **346****_._**


	4. Testing

**A/N: **Since there seems to be some confusion about the pairings in this fic, I thought I'd take a moment to clarify. Right now they stand as Oliver/Felicity, Tommy/Shado, with friendships between Tommy & Oliver, Tommy & Felicity, and Barry & Felicity. Other pairings may be hinted at, or come and go as the story evolves, but right now these are my main focuses.

**A/N 2:** This chapter took a bit longer than expected because it just kept getting longer and longer. Finally I had to split it into two separate chapters. Hopefully this means that the next part will be finished and updated sooner.

* * *

><p>It's early in the morning when Felicity slips into the computer lab. All the other recruits are in the dining hall having breakfast, but Felicity's found that if she skips out early, she can get a few minutes in the computer lab alone to give Oliver a rundown of everything she's learned so far.<p>

After opening the shell program, Felicity types in a message to Oliver: **SHADO FEI CAME BACK YESTERDAY**_**.**_

Oliver's reply takes a second before it comes through. **HOW DO YOU KNOW?**

**SAW HER WHILE TRAINING WITH TOMMY. HE RAN OUT OF THE ROOM AFTER HER.**

**WAIT. WHY IS TOMMY TRAINING YOU?**

She types back,** KEEP GETTING PULLED OUT OF CLASSES TO WORK WITH BARRY. I WAS FALLING BEHIND. TOMMY'S HELPING ME KEEP UP. NOT THAT I ACTUALLY NEED IT, BUT I FIGURED GETTING CLOSER TO HIM COULDN'T HURT.**

There's a long wait before Oliver replies. **GOOD. SMART MOVE. IS TOMMY STILL TRAINING THE REGULAR RECRUITS? OR HAS SHADO TAKEN OVER FROM HIM.**

**THEY'RE WORKING ON IT TOGETHER NOW,** Felicity writes.

**ANYTHING ELSE TO REPORT? **Oliver asks.

Felicity takes a deep breath, and types: **I HAVE A TEST TODAY. INTERROGATING A DIVISION PRISONER. **

It's kind of an unconventional test for someone who is probably just going to end up working with computers, but apparently Malcolm and Isabel have insisted on it. They want her completely cleared for field work.

Oliver's responds: **BE CAREFUL. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU FIND OUT.**

**I WILL. 34-**

"Yo! Blondie!"

Felicity is startled so badly she almost falls off of the chair she's sitting on. "What?" she asks, trying to regain her composure and simultaneously close the shell program so her fellow recruit doesn't see it. For just a second, she feels bad she won't be able to tell Oliver goodbye. She hopes he doesn't worry.

The kid's got both hands stuffed in the front pocket of his red hoodie. "Allen's looking for you," he says, gesturing for her to follow him with a nod of his head. "C'mon."

"Don't call me blondie," Felicity says as she follows him out of the room.

The kid shrugs. "Sorry. Never got your name."

"I'm Felicity."

"Roy," he says in reply. "I've seen you around. You work with flashdrive most of the time, right?"

"Flashdrive?"

Roy grins. "He's got that little one shaped like a blue police box. When he teaches us Hacking For Dummies, he's always fiddling with it. Apparently his hacker handle used to be 'The Flash' or something ridiculous like that."

"It still is," Felicity says. "And he is every bit as good as he says. Maybe even better."

"You like working with him then?" Roy asks.

"Yeah," she replies with a smile, because she _does_. Barry is the easiest person to be around. He's sweet and thoughtful and brilliant. He's nice to her even when she kicks his butt at _Halo_. Which she does. Often.

"To each their own, I guess." They stop at the door to Barry's workroom. Roy stuffs his hands back into the pockets of his hoodie. "I guess I'll be seeing you around, Blondie."

She gives him a look, and opens her mouth to object to the moniker, but is interrupted by the door in front of them flying open.

"Felicity!" Barry exclaims. "There you are. You get to learn how to set up a lie detector today."

It's something that Felicity actually _doesn't_ know how to do - at least, she's not sure of the particulars of how _Division's_ lie detectors work. For the first time, excitement fills her at the idea of getting to learn something _new_ and useful.

She grins widely at Barry as he grabs her hand and starts to pull her down the hallway. His legs are so long and he moves so fast that she almost has to run to keep up with him.

* * *

><p>"I don't like this," Tommy tells Shado.<p>

"I don't like it _either_," she replies. "This is not Felicity's area of expertise and to put her through this is imbecilic, but it's happening with Malcolm's go-ahead, so for now we keep quiet and you get ready to pull her out if anything happens."

"You couldn't stop him?" Tommy says quietly, well aware that they're not alone.

"I just got back," she murmurs. "There was nothing I could do."

They're standing side-by-side in Operations, watching the video feed displayed on screens mounted on the wall.

"The man you're about to talk to is a suspected terrorist," an on-screen Isabel is telling Felicity. "We want you to find out what he knows about where the other members in his cell are hiding and what their plans are. You are to use any interrogation technique you think necessary, and if he needs further persuasion, you can use this." She hands Felicity a small remote. "Push this button and it'll give him an electric shock."

Tommy watches Felicity's eyes go wide. With fear or with horror, he's not sure which. Her hands are trembling as she takes it. Isabel gestures to the door that leads to the interrogation room. "Give it your best shot," Isabel says shortly.

"She's not trained for this," Tommy grumbles. "She's going to crash and burn, and Isabel is going to _delight_ in it."

Shado touches his arm with the tips of her fingers. Her voice stays ever-soft, ever-gentle. "I don't know why Malcolm makes the decisions that he does, but I will make this right."

Isabel returns to Operations a moment later, and Shado pulls her hand away from his arm.

Forcing his focus to return to Felicity's image on the screens, Tommy tries to ignore the way his whole arm still feels like it's tingling from her touch. It's not difficult to tell that Felicity is nervous. Tommy watches the way she carries herself, how she holds her arms protectively around her body, the way the hand holding the remote is trembling slightly.

The good news is that her voice is unwavering as she repeats the questions Isabel feeds her. Joseph is not going to break because Felicity Smoak questions him firmly, but her inability to be intimidated by him is important.

Over the earpiece, Isabel coaches her on non-violent intimidation tactics. Felicity threatens, coerces, and offers him his freedoms if he'll just tell her where the rest of the members of his cell are hiding.

She holds off on using the electric shock until Isabel flat out _orders _her to, and there are tears in her eyes by the time she actually lets her thumb hover over the button. "Please don't make me," she whispers, and Tommy's three seconds away from insisting _again_ that Isabel shut this whole thing down, when Shado grabs his arm again, tightly. Her nails dig into his skin, and he exhales slowly. Just a little longer. It'll be over soon.

Felicity presses the button, and Joseph _screams_.

"Tommy..." Barry says, uneasiness in his voice. He's handled tech for plenty of Division interrogations, but never one such a close friend has had to lead, and Tommy immediately understands his disquiet. He doesn't like watching Division turn Felicity's innate compassion against her.

And then Joseph's restraints snap. He's out of his chair and advancing on Felicity before she even has a chance to react.

Felicity screams as Joseph slams her body against the wall, his hands locked around her throat, and Tommy loses whatever slip of control he previously possessed. He's out of Operations, down the hall, and through the interrogation room door just in time to yank Joseph off of Felicity and throw him across the room.

The two security agents who were right on his heels go after Joseph. Tommy waits until they've secured him, then kneels down to check on Felicity, who has slid down the wall into a sitting position on the floor. Her hands are rubbing her throat. Tommy knows it's going to bruise.

"You okay?" he asks, even though he knows the answer is no.

She nods. Because Felicity Smoak is nothing if not surprisingly brave, and Tommy admires her for that.

There's a the squeak of a certain person's converse shoes against the tile of Division's floor, and Tommy backs away from Felicity as Barry races into the room.

"Are you okay?" he says, panting. She takes his hand and lets him help her up into an easy embrace.

Tommy watches them hug, more than a little envious of their easy connection. Barry and Felicity took to each other instantly. There's no question they're going to have each other's back as they navigate this hellhole. It's really good for Barry. Tommy knows he was pretty much alone before Felicity got here. Not that Tommy isn't friends with the guy, but there's only so much technological babble he can stomach before his brain self destructs.

But Felicity understands him _and_ likes him, and he understands and likes her right back. And as much as Tommy wishes he could have that for himself - with a woman he can't _ever_ have - Tommy's still grateful they have each other.

"C'mon," he hears Barry tell Felicity as the two of them leave the room together. "Let's go play some Xbox."

Shado finds him in the hallway a few minutes later. "That was foolish," she says, "Running in there like that. Isabel is going to tell Malcolm that you're emotionally compromised, and it _will_ come back to haunt you."

"I'm fine with taking that chance," Tommy says, pushing past her to keep moving towards Operations.

He's only taken a few steps when he hears her quietly say, "_I'm_ not."

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you're up for this?" Tommy asks Felicity for the tenth time.<p>

"I'm sure I don't want _Isabel _thinking I'm not up for this," Felicity answers. "Besides, it's been a whole day. Medical cleared me in less than fifteen minutes. I'm sure I'll be fine."

She's not actually sure she'll be fine. She's just not comfortable admitting that to Tommy. She wishes she had the opportunity to tell Oliver about this little field trip, but she didn't get her usual time in the computer lab this morning. Instead, Barry caught her as she was coming out of her room, and he sat her down in a workstation inside Operations to make sure she remembered how to run Division's mobile communications system.

The rest of the recruits are going on a capture the flag tactical training mission, but Felicity is being tested on her ability to help her fellow agents in the field when Barry's not there. From what both Tommy and Barry have told her, this requires her to keep a cool head while under pressure as she deals with situations that arise while in the field. She'll be running the comms for the recruits while simultaneously hacking into their target's network to access their internal security network, all while avoiding detection and using the system to keep her team safe.

It's exactly the kind of work she'll be doing once Division has cleared her for fieldwork. Hopefully, that won't be for a while, especially given just how many butterflies are in her stomach.

Tommy gently touches her shoulder, "Good luck, Smoak."

She's too nervous to do anything other than nod quickly and climb into the Division bus.

The only empty seat is next to a black-haired girl Shado keeps calling Cindy even though she's adamant that her name is 'Sin'. ("With an 'S'," she's been firmly insisting.)

Felicity slips into the seat beside her and give her a careful smile. Sin frowns in response.

"Hi," Felicity says.

"Blondie," Sin replies, crossing her arms and turning to face the blacked-out window.

"Don't worry about her," Roy says from the row behind them, leaning forward to rest his arms along the back of their seat. "She warms up to people eventually."

Felicity raises an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Well," he says, reconsidering, "maybe it's just that you get used to her."

Sin turns to glare at him. "Cut it out, Abercrombie."

As the bus starts to move, Roy strikes up an easy conversation with Felicity. He's apparently having a lot of trouble understanding the basic computer techniques Barry has been teaching them in the one recruit class Felicity _isn't _required to attend. She does, on occasion, go in order to assist Barry, but only when Tommy is otherwise occupied and unable to help her keep up with the physical aspects of her training.

Roy is wondering if maybe she'd be willing to help him grasp some basic computer skills in exchange for him giving her some pointers on the range. Apparently, Roy's an excellent marksman. He _almost_ broke Oliver Queen's long distance shooting record last week.

For a while, Sin is quiet beside Felicity. Before long though, she starts contributing to the conversation - a sentence here and a sentence there. She mostly seems to want to scoff at Roy's perception of his abilities.

Roy turns out to have been right; it does take Sin a little while to warm up to people. She also is having difficulty with the computer classes they're required to take, and while she doesn't outright _ask_ for help, Felicity notices that when she begins including Sin in her statements about when they can get together in the computer lab to work on it, the recruit starts smiling just a _little_.

"You and I should get together to work on some hand-to-hand," Sin tells Felicity.

Felicity _really_ wishes that she didn't have to tone down her abilities in order to throw Division off guard, because she's really getting tired of falling onto the training mats. Regardless, she knows that Oliver would encourage her to work on her combat skills as much as possible. He'd also encourage her to become friends with Roy and Sin, but also warn her not to get too close. She may, for the sake of her mission, have to betray them later. The thought is an unpleasant one, but the more rational part of Felicity knows she needs to prepare herself to do it. Besides, what if betraying them ends up saving Oliver's life or ends up stopping Division? How can she not?

She is just about to tell Sin that hand-to-hand combat help would be great, when the bus abruptly screeches to a halt.

And everything suddenly feels very, very wrong.

"Hey," Felicity says, rising from her seat. "Why are we stopping?"

The words are barely out of her mouth before the front windshield shatters and a silver canister flies through the newly created opening. It clatters to the floor as smoke oozes out of it.

Ducking down, Felicity covers her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket and turns her face away. She can hear people boarding the bus, and as she peeks up at the intruders, she sees black tactical gear, gas masks, and AR-15s.

"Stay calm," Roy whispers. "Division will come for us."

That's not exactly reassuring. Felicity doesn't know who the hell is doing this or what they want with a bus full of Division recruits, but she does know that she doesn't trust Division to save her, and Oliver doesn't have any way of knowing she's in trouble.

Division could hang her out to dry; it could write all of them off as an unfortunate loss. All they can do is try to save themselves. It's a terrifying thought.

That's why the moment one of the attackers gets close enough to Felicity, she strikes him, slamming the heel of her hand up into his jaw. There's a crack, her hand is covered in blood, and then something hard - the butt of her assailant's AR - slams into the side of Felicity's head. Pain shoots through her skull as everything goes dark.

* * *

><p>Oliver's halfway down the foundry steps when he sees Felicity sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her hands in her lap. The only signal she might be willing to talk with him is the fact that she hasn't drawn the curtains closed. Instead, they're thrown wide open, making her area part of the main space of the room.<p>

Cautiously, Oliver approaches. They've been sharing the same living quarters for the better part of a year now, and it's become just as much her space as it has his. He knows the rules about touching her computers and not putting the toilet seat down, and he still follows the unspoken rule of never entering the place she sleeps, even if it is only separated from the place he sleeps by three purple shower curtains.

"Felicity?" he asks quietly, and the nod she gives him grants the permission he needs. Sitting down on the bed beside her, he resists the urge to take her hand.

They sit like that for a few minutes, side by side. Oliver doesn't know what to say, isn't sure how to narrow the chasm that has suddenly formed between them.

"So," Felicity says quietly, breaking the silence. "It's tomorrow then."

"If you want to back out," Oliver says, "You just say the word and we find another way."

Shaking her head, she says softly, "This is the best way."

"Hey," he says, unable to stop himself from placing a crooked finger under her chin and tilting her head up so he can look at her. "That does not make it the only one."

"We've planned for this. I know all the contingencies. We're not throwing away seven months of work just because I'm a little nervous."

"Say the word, Felicity," he insists, because like _hell_ is she dying for this. Like hell is he forcing her in there. She's been determined to do it up until now so he's been determined to keep her safe while she does, but he thinks he's just as comfortable with getting Malcolm another way. No matter how much longer it takes.

For a long time, she's quiet beside him. Then she says, "You know I have to do this, Oliver."

"I know," he says, trying not to feel the weight on his shoulders getting heavier because for a second he believed she was actually going to back out. "I just don't want anything to happen to you."

It's as close to _I care about you_ as he's willing to get.

This thing between them - their relationship - it can't be what he knows they both want. Love gets people killed. Love is weakness. What they're doing is already too dangerous without adding such a volatile emotion into the mix.

(He could love her though. It wouldn't even be difficult. And that knowledge scares the _hell _out of him.)

She's walking right into the danger, lying to keep the both of them safe, using Division's own tricks against it. But if they ever figure out that she is someone Oliver would die to protect, they could shove Oliver to his knees, bend him and break him all for _her..._

If they knew how he feels about her, if they ever get an inkling of the things he would do to keep her safe and unharmed?

Then they've lost. And they've both sacrificed too much to let that happen.

That knowledge doesn't stop Oliver from thinking about it though. Every time he's with her, he _wants_. He wants her so much closer than she is right now: the edge of her shoulder and the side of her leg just barely brushing his are not enough.

She's the one who grabs his hand in hers, pulling it closer so the back rests against the exposed skin of her thigh.

He turns his head to study her: memorizing her profile, the sadness in her eyes, the soft curve of her lips, the pink shade of lipstick she loves, the way she always smells sweet and feminine.

His eyes lower to her right shoulder. The tiny strap of her tank top has slid down her arm, so Oliver gently fixes it with his free hand. If he also bends down to press a kiss to the edge of her shoulder after he's done that, well, he just can't help it.

He hears her sharp intake of breath right before she whispers his name. "Oliver, what are you doing?"

_Nothing_. He wants to say. _This is nothing. _

It _should_ be nothing. Except she's staring at him intently, pink lower lip pinched between her teeth. And Oliver wants everything he's not supposed to have.

And he knows, _knows_ deep down inside, that she wants the same thing. They've been partners for months now. He's not oblivious, though he pretends to be, and whether that's for his sake or hers he's not even sure anymore.

Her grip on his hand tightens, and she sways closer to him, so close and so far. So simple and so complicated. Everything he wants and everything he shouldn't have.

"Felicity," he whispers, and he stops because he just _can't_.

"Tell me," she says, voice _breaking,_ and - _shit_ - that's his fault, isn't it? "You always start to say it, but then you stop yourself. Tell me just once. Just once, Oliver."

In a swift, quick movement, Oliver cups her face with his hands and pulls her close, pressing his forehead against hers. They're so close he can feel the waves of her breath on his mouth.

There are words. There are so many words bottled up inside him, words he's been trying to say since they met, since he first saw her and she stole his breath away.

There are too many words, and he can't find them, much less string them together into any kind of coherent sentence. But Felicity's _right here_, eyes closed, hands on his upper arms, breath coming out of her mouth in short pants, trembling with anticipation under his touch, and the very thought of not closing the distance between them with a kiss is _agony._

He shouldn't do it. Some part of his brain knows this. A good man would not act on the impulse. A good man would walk away; he would continue to ignore the attachment growing between them. A good man would not tell her what she wants to hear. A good man would protect her.

Oliver Queen is not a good man.

Oliver Queen is a selfish, utter bastard.

And that's why he kisses her.


	5. Trying

**A/N: **Please note the rating change. Also, this is probably the last update before 2015. Probably.

* * *

><p>When Felicity wakes up, she's duct-taped to a metal chair in the middle of a dark, dingy room. Her feet are bare. Someone's taken her shoes off, and her ankles are bound together with wire. That's...disconcerting.<p>

Carefully, she tests the bonds on her wrists. A mixture of Tommy and Oliver's advice regarding hostage and torture situations starts playing in her head. Find out who they are. Find out what they want. Figure out ways to escape. Figure out how to turn the tables on them.

Survive.

Neither Tommy nor Oliver is coming for her. She's got to save herself.

The door swings open with a sickening _creek_, and Felicity jerks her head up to look at her captor. He's carrying something under his arm that she can't quite make out.

"What is that?" She thinks it speaks volumes about who she is as a person that she's more worried about what her captor is _holding_ rather than who he _is_.

"Incentive. To get you to tell me what I want to know."

She may primarily work with computers—both software and hardware—but as soon as Felicity gets a good view of the object in the man's arms, she immediately understands the significance of the device he's holding, especially since she just used a similar one in interrogation yesterday. This machine is cruder, not sleek and stylized like the one Division uses.

That fact makes it scarier somehow.

"I don't know anything," Felicity says, craning her neck to keep him in sight as he moves behind her. He's fiddling with wires and knobs and buttons.

"That's not true," he says, "Your people have my brother."

He moves in front of her and holds a black and white photo in front of her eyes. "His name is Joseph."

"I don't know him. I've never seen that man before." She's helpless to stop her voice from wavering through the lie. She has seen that man before. Yesterday. When she electrocuted him.

"We'll see." He bends down, putting the machine on the ground. It's then that she realizes he's connecting it to the wires wrapped around her legs. And then the man is grabbing a set of jumper cables to attach onto the box, and words are flying out of Felicity's mouth as fast as humanly possible.

"Please don't hurt me. There's nothing I can tell you. I don't know where he is. I don't know. I'm telling you the truth. I swear. I'm telling you the truth. Please don't hurt me. Plea—"

He twists a knob on the machine.

Felicity throws her head back and _screams._

* * *

><p>Oliver intends for the kiss to be quick, simple. It's supposed to be a goodbye, perhaps even a small acknowledgement that he feels this <em>something<em> between them too. Except Felicity responds to him instantly, tilting her head and parting her lips. Her hands come up to grasp his arms, but she doesn't push him away.

He tries to stop it, he really does, but Felicity is humming against his mouth, and soon her fingers are trailing down his chest. When she breaks the kiss to swing a leg over his lap so she can straddle him, his brain doesn't clear enough for him to focus on the fact that they should be stopping, not allowing this moment to get more intense.

But Felicity's on his lap, wearing nothing but her tank top and a pair of too-short cut-off shorts, her bare legs bracketing his hips. Gently, he pulls the elastic from her ponytail so her hair falls free around her shoulders. She tugs on the bottom of his tee-shirt, and Oliver lets her break the kiss to pull it over his head. He sighs when her fingertips trail against his skin. She traces his abs, and her thumb brushes across a white puckered scar where a bullet pieced his side. He shouldn't have lived through that encounter.

He shouldn't be alive for this moment now.

"Tell me to stop," she whispers against his mouth, and he wants to scoff at the irony. Tell _her_ to stop. A minute ago, he was about to say the same thing, about to beg her to tell him to stop, because this is a choice they shouldn't make. They both know they shouldn't, but this might be the only time they ever get. They don't have the luxury of a thousand tomorrows.

They might not even have the luxury of one.

"Felicity," he says instead, sliding his hands beneath her tank top and loving the way she melts under his touch. "Felicity, Felicity, Felicity..."

She flicks open the button of his jeans at the same time she presses a kiss to a scar right beneath is collarbone, rocking her hips against his.

And Oliver's completely and totally gone after that. She's so small and so soft and so very _breakable_. For just a few minutes he wants to wrap her up in his arms, hide her away from the world. Keep her safe, down here in their foundry with nothing but him and her machines and nothing that can hurt her.

He twists around to lay Felicity down on the mattress, unable to stop his smile as her hair splays out on the pillow beneath her. Carefully, he kneels on the bed so he can climb over her, kissing the skin of her stomach that her tank top has exposed and pulling the material up to reveal more of her body.

She wiggles beneath him, her fingers carding through his hair. Sliding her shirt up with one hand, he gently maneuvers her arms up above her head with the other so he can pull the tank top up and off. Felicity catches it between her fingers and flings it away, then loops her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a deep, slow kiss. Her thighs press into the sides of his hips.

Dragging his hands down her body again, Oliver slips them both past the waistband of her shorts.

"_Oh_," Felicity says softly. "Oliv—"

He cuts her off by _ripping_ those infernal shorts from her body, and the way she sighs in response tells him that was a good call. Besides, it's not like she can take them to Division with her.

That thought, that reminder of their circumstances, almost makes him stop. But then Felicity's fingers are trailing down his chest, finding scars and marks she's seen so many times. He's long ago stopped worrying about what she thinks of them, long ago gotten used to the look in her eyes when he works out shirtless. Still, there are so many things she doesn't know.

Oliver closes his eyes when her hands move even lower.

"Hey," she asks softly. "Where'd you go?"

He opens his eyes and looks down at her. She stares up at him, her eyes filled with concern he doesn't deserve.

"Doesn't matter," he says. "I'm back now."

She grips his belt loops and leans up to press a kiss on the underside of his jaw as she uses her hands to shove his pants down and then her legs and feet to finish the job. Oliver shakes his legs a couple of times to help her along the way.

And then he presses her body firmly against his so he can feel every inch of her skin on his as he kisses her senseless. It takes only a few seconds to lose himself in her again.

When he pulls away, she's panting and whining and utterly desperate in his arms. The situation is going to escalate even further if they keep this up, but as much as Oliver doesn't want to stop, he also doesn't want to push her into something she's not comfortable with, so he asks, "What do you want, Felicity?"

One of her hands slips beneath the waistband of his boxers, and he whispers a soft curse against her neck in response to her touch.

"You," she says, pausing to catch his lips in a desperate kiss before she continues, "I want _you_ inside me_ now_."

Oliver groans into her mouth; he can work with that.

* * *

><p>Felicity's screams do uncomfortable things to Barry's stomach. In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have eaten breakfast this morning. Events like this just aren't normally in his job description. Any one of his technicians could be here running video and communications for a typical exercise like this one, but Isabel was insistent on him being here, even though Shado would have been fine with him getting someone else to do it.<p>

It's been five hours since Felicity woke up inside one of Division's safe houses. Five hours of interrogation and torture. Five hours of Barry gritting his teeth and digging his nails onto the arms of his chair so he doesn't do something incredibly stupid, like launch himself across the room at Malcolm Merlyn and demand that he stop this pathetic excuse for a training exercise _right this instant_.

The record time for this exercise is eighteen hours. He's not sure how far they plan on pushing Felicity, but Barry's well aware that they could be in for a long night.

"I'm going to up the electric current, now," Agent Miller is telling a sobbing Felicity. "Unless you tell me what I want to know."

"Please," she whimpers. "Please stop."

"Tell me what I want to know."

"I don't _know_ what you want to know. How many times do I have to say it before you _believe_ me?"

Miller twists the dial up and flips a switch. No matter how much Barry wants to look away, he can't seem to force himself to take his eyes off of the screen.

"This is twisted," Barry says, trying to ignore the way Felicity's whole body shudders when Miller gives her a few seconds of relief from the torment. "We don't usually push them this hard."

"Do you have an emotional conflict?" Isabel snaps.

Barry jumps out of his seat, "That's my _friend_ he's torturing in there. Of course I have an emotional conflict."

"Sit down, Barry. It'll be over soon." Shado says calmly. "Isabel, don't talk to my people like that."

"They're not just your people, and I will talk to them however I like," Isabel snaps.

"Ladies," Merlyn says, and his tone allows for no further arguing.

Barry glances over at Tommy, who's loosening his tie. He doesn't appear any happier about the situation, though Barry's sure he knew it was coming when he allowed Felicity to get on that bus.

"Malcolm," Shado says softly. "It's past time we ended this, don't you think? Remember what happened to Angler when we pushed him too hard?"

Quickly, Merlyn glances at Isabel. "What do you think?"

"I think it's time to bring in the kid," Isabel says.

Barry doesn't miss the look of trepidation Tommy gives Shado, or the way Shado mutely shakes her head ever-so-slightly.

With a nod of agreement, Malcolm says, "Do it."

Quickly, Barry relays the message through the comm unit, and watches as a group of three men—part of Miller's tactical team—drag in a lifeless Roy Harper.

When she sees her friend, Felicity's cries take on a completely different tone. There's no more fear or pleading, instead there's a sharp tang of grief when her yell turns into a horrified sob.

"What did you do?" she cries. "What did you do to him?"

Barry knows it's only a drug, designed to stop his heart and slow his breathing, but the fact is that for Felicity, her friend was just killed and his dead body is lying on the ground in front of her. She's crying and straining against her bonds. Her breathing is shallow, and her whole body is damp with sweat.

"It's time to start talking," Agent Miller tells her. "Unless you want to end up like your friend here."

And then Felicity just deflates. Her shoulders fall and tears drip from her eyes as she just stares at Roy.

"I'll tell you what you want to know," she says, numbly, like all the fight from a few moments ago has just left her in one quick _whoosh_. Her lower lip trembles. "I'll tell you everything."

"Here we go," Isabel says, and the excitement in her voice makes Barry sick.

"Who do you work for?" Miller asks.

Felicity's answer is inaudible, and Barry watches as Miller moves closer to hear what she's saying. Her lips keep moving, and Miller keeps moving closer. He bends down to place his ear right by her mouth, and that's when Barry realizes what Felicity's doing.

He doesn't have time to warn anyone though, because one moment Felicity appears to be struggling for breath as she tells Miller what he wants to know, and the next moment she's freed one hand, and delivered a relatively powerful blow to the side of Miller's head, using the momentum of the punch to knock the chair she's sitting in over so she can free her other wrist. How she shakes out of the bonds around her ankles, Barry isn't sure, but after a quick exchange of blows, she's out of the chair and Miller is down on the ground. Felicity scrambles for his gun.

Behind Barry, Malcolm is yelling and Isabel's voice is sharp, but Barry's eyes are glued to the screen. It's Shado's voice that breaks through the trance he's fallen in. "—call Peterson to get her out of there, Barry."

TAC teams. Right. Let the TAC team know what's happening so that Felicity doesn't hurt herself or Miller or anyone else. He hops onto the comms to tell them what's going on.

He stops in mid-sentence when the gunshot goes off.

Barry turns to look at the nearest screen. Miller lies on the ground, blood pooling beneath his unmoving body. The gun is in Felicity's trembling hands.

"Who let him bring a loaded gun in there?" Tommy is yelling, and Barry's trying to form words to explain the situation to the head of the TAC unit, but Shado takes the microphone from him and starts speaking calmly and evenly. Barry can't focus on what she's saying; he's too focused on Felicity.

She sets the gun down and races around Miller's body. There's a long pipe on a nearby table, and after she uses it to barricade the door, she runs for the only window in the room, climbing on the table beneath it so she can reach the latch. When it doesn't immediately give, she grabs a wrench from the table. It takes a few good hits, but the glass eventually shatters. Felicity clears it aside with the wrench and scrambles through the window.

"She's out," Barry tells Shado.

"I'm going to get her," Tommy says, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door.

"Peterson's team will get her," Isabel tells him.

"She's just been through a trauma. She's not going to trust anyone she doesn't recognize," Tommy argues, and Barry's inclined to agree, though he's not quite up to saying so.

"Go," Shado says, ignoring the venomous glare Isabel levels at her. "Go now."

"There's a gas station a few miles west of her position," Barry calls out, having pulled up Felicity's tracker as soon as she climbed through the window. "Looks like that's where she's headed."

There's practically smoke pouring out of Isabel's ears, but the expression on Tommy's face is one of gratitude. He exchanges a quick glance with Shado, and then he's gone.

"Let him go," Merlyn tells Isabel, putting a hand on her shoulder to hold her back. "We'll deal with him later."

* * *

><p>As it turns out, Felicity during sex is a non-stop stream of completely adorable dirty-talk. The accidental innuendos she lets slip every day have <em>nothing<em> on the way she speaks when she's actually making an effort. She blushes with every word, a flush that spreads across her cheeks and down her neck. Oliver presses kisses to her neck, alternating between soft and light, and slow and tender.

He's wanted this for a long time, but it's more than that. He doesn't want just _this_. He wants everything. He wants a future, a life with her away from danger. He wants to be with her without knowing there's a ticking clock, without fearing that there might never be another chance. He wants to hope again.

Felicity's skin is soft, and her voice is heavenly. It's breathy and sweet. Oliver catches her lips every so often, stopping her babbles mid-sentence with deep kisses. As soon as he stops kissing her, she always returns right back to the same train of thought: telling him how good something feels, telling him to do something slower or faster or _again_.

She's intoxicating in the best way, and he feels drugged by her, lost in her, _consumed_ by her. His mission is nothing; Division is nothing; they're both eclipsed by the happiness and ecstasy that is Felicity Smoak's body aligned with his own and the sound of her voice crying his name as they both tip over the edge.

Felicity cries through her climax, tears slipping down her cheeks as her nails bite into the skin of his back, his name nothing more than a whisper on her lips.

He's only a second or two behind, gasping and shaking and holding onto her like she's his only lifeline.

Aftershocks are still causing her body to tremble when he kisses her, long and slow and deep, like he can pour his soul into it if he does it properly. He doesn't know how he's going to say goodbye tomorrow.

When their lips separate, she's breathing heavily.

"Okay?" he asks.

"Better than that," she replies with a soft smile, and even though he meant _are you okay?_ his ego isn't going to protest the confusion.

Effortlessly, Oliver turns them so they're lying side-by-side. They're still close, pressed together because the bed is just a twin. His arms are around her back and shoulders, and her legs are intertwined with his.

"How much better than okay?" he asks. She gives him a look that's pure Felicity, pursed lips—lipstick faded and smeared and _that_ is a sight Oliver's sure he could get used to—and arched brow.

Alright then, so it was _that_ much better than okay.

His grin must be wide, because she reaches up with her hand and lightly taps her fingers against his cheek. "Stop that," she tells him.

"Stop what?"

"Looking at me like that." She bites her lip and suddenly the moment is very, very different. It's heavier, somehow.

"Looking at you like what, Felicity?" He's helpless to stop the way his voice lowers, the way his arms tighten around her.

"You're smiling, Oliver," she says. "I've never seen you smile like this before."

Oliver doesn't have an explanation for that, at least, not one he can say out loud, so he kisses her again.

"I'll be right back," he promises, brushing her hair back away from her face. He pulls the blankets over her body and tucks them around her.

When he returns a few moments later, she's crying softly, and it breaks his heart. He cups her cheek with his hand, and she turns her head to press a kiss onto his palm as he lies down beside her.

"I'm scared," she whispers.

"I know," he says. "And you're doing it anyway, and I don't think you understand how brave that makes you."

"I don't regret this," she tells him, a gesture of her hand making it clear she means the two of them and not the mission tomorrow. "I need you to know that. This might be the only thing that gets me through what happens next."

"Felicity, I—" He stops, and more tears drip down Felicity's cheeks.

"I know, Oliver," she says, and she hides her face in the side of his neck. "I know."

Then there's nothing to be done except hold her until she falls asleep.

* * *

><p>Once she's slipped through the small window and made it to the road, Felicity picks a direction and <em>runs<em> without stopping. She ignores the pain in her feet and the aches in her body.

The gas station and the phone booth are a miracle. That the phone is still working—who uses phone booths anymore?—is even _more_ of a miracle.

Her hands shake as she dials one of the eight emergency numbers Oliver had her memorize before she infiltrated Division. He answers almost immediately. "Felicity?"

The story comes out in a jumble of words. She's not sure how Oliver manages to comprehend half of what she's saying, but he's traced the phone call and is on his way to her location before she's even finished telling him what's happened.

"You need to prepare yourself for the possibility that this was a Division test," he says, and she swears her heart stops.

"What?"

"It's not outside the realm of possibility, what you're describing sounds eerily similar to an experience I had right after I arrived."

"But I killed him, Oliver. I shot him and he's...he's _dead_."

"I know, but you didn't know any better. You believed you were in life-threatening danger. Stick to that story. For right now, get yourself somewhere hidden and don't come out until you see me."

He hangs up, and Felicity scans the area. The gas station does have a few customers, but it doesn't look like any of them are paying attention to her. The best thing to do _is_ probably to hide and wait for Oliver to show up.

Every second feels like an hour by the time a black four-door pulls into the lot and a man in a brown leather jacket climbs out.

Felicity's heart stops.

_Oliver_.

She breaks into a run. Every step hurts her bare feet, but every step brings her closer to Oliver, so she doesn't care. Felicity flings her arms around him, and he catches her easily, lifting her so she can wrap her legs snugly around his hips. His lips meet hers in a kiss that's overpowering in its fierceness. It's desperate and frantic, more like a series of kisses than one long singular kiss, and Felicity doesn't want it to end.

"You okay?" he asks when he pulls away.

"Yeah," she answers, "But what are we going to do, Oliver? If what you said is true, I killed a _Division_ _agent_."

"I don't—" Oliver stops and curses softly. "There's a car coming."

He drags her back behind the cab of an eighteen-wheeler just as a black SUV pulls into the lot.

"It's Division," Felicity says softly.

"You have to go back," Oliver whispers.

She doesn't want to go back, but she knows Division won't just let her go. They'll keep looking for her, until she's taken back, taken out, or taken them down. She hopes it's the last one.

Still, this is the first time she's seen Oliver in months. She doesn't want to—she _can't_—let him go.

"Go," Oliver tells her. She can hear the sounds of the SUV doors opening and footsteps on the gravel. "They can't find me here with you."

She presses her lips to his in a searing kiss that probably lasts longer than it should.

"Felicity!" It's Tommy's voice calling her name, and it makes her stomach lurch.

"Oliver, I—" She doesn't know how to say everything she wants to say. There's too much to say and not enough time to say it.

"I _know_, Felicity," he says. "Now, _go_."

Slowly, Felicity steps back, away from him. None of Division's men even notice when she comes out from behind the truck. "Tommy," she says, trying to remind herself that the Felicity he knows would be _happy_ that he's come for her, that she's safe.

Tommy turns, and Felicity sees the relief in his shoulders when he realizes that she's okay. When he runs towards her, Felicity can't help the instinctive step backwards that she takes. She doesn't want to go with him. She wants to go back to the foundry with Oliver, curl up in his arms and let his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

It takes every ounce of willpower she possesses not to turn and look back at where Oliver was hiding a few moments ago.

As soon as Tommy reaches her, he rests his hands on her shoulders and he reassures her that she's alright, he's not going to hurt her.

"You did great," he tells her. "You did great, Felicity. You're safe now."

No, she was safe three minutes ago when Oliver's arms were around her. She's in danger _now_. "They hurt me, they _killed_ Roy."

"Roy's fine; it was a test," he says, and she waits a beat to let that information sink in before she slaps him.

"It was a _test_? I _shot_ that man. He's _dead_." And she was the one who _killed_ him. _Murdered_ him. The weight of that hits her fully, and she almost loses her balance.

Tommy steadies her. "You thought he was going to kill you. You did what you had to do."

"What's...what's Malcolm going to do?" She doesn't have to fake the terror in her voice. It's very real.

"Nothing," Tommy says. "He's not going to do anything to you. I'm not going to let him. We're going to get you back to Division, and a doctor is going to look at you. I promise, Felicity. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

And even against her better judgment, Felicity believes him.

"C'mon," Tommy says, bending down and lifting her with one arm under her knees and the other supporting her back. "Let's go."

He carries her back to the car. Over his shoulder she watches the place Oliver was just a few minutes ago, hoping that he's long gone and Division doesn't find him.

"It's gonna be okay, Felicity," Tommy says, opening the passenger door for her and gently setting her on the seat. Just before Tommy shuts the door, he says, "Let's get you back to Division."


End file.
